Welcome to the General Discussion area where just about anything goes! This area is designed to discuss all matters and does not necessarily have to be Transformers related. Please keep topics relevant.

Seibertron.com is first and foremost a Transformers-themed website dedicated to, staffed, and fuelled by fans of the Transformers franchise. Over the past 12 years we have been active, we have tried to avoid politics and too much involvement with the outside world as our interest is in the war on Cybertron and its universe beyond, not in domestic policy and law, so when we do decide to get involved please understand that it's over what we feel is a matter of great importance.

I have not written anything like this before and have borrowed very heavily from Tom's Hardware's post on the subject as it is by far the best bulletin I have seen to date, relating directly to real world examples of posters actions. This article is here to inform you about a couple of scary bills that could end Seibertron.com and the Internet we all know and love. SOPA is a bill in the House (and PIPA is it's Senate equivalent) that threatens to fundamentally change the way the internet works by placing excessive restrictions on user generated content such as forum posts and video and image uploads.

The intention of this topic is to cover 4 points:

To explain and examine the bills

To highlight the extent of the damage they can do to Seibertron.com (as well as the Internet)

What our members can do to help stop this.

To give a sense of urgency to the situation. PIPA is up for review on Jan 24th so we don't have much time.

The basics of the law are:

It would require web services like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to monitor and aggressively filter everything all users upload.

It would deny site owners due process of law, by initiating a DNS blacklisting based solely on a good faith assertion by an individual copyright or intellectual property owner.

It would give the U.S. government the power to selectively censor the web using techniques similar to those used in China, Malaysia and Iran. The Great Firewall of China is an example of this type of embedded, infrastructural internet censorship.

Spricket24 from YouTube gives a good summary of the problems we face (6+ min)

And a more detailed view is registered by John "TotalBiscuit" Bain, and is the most watched video on the subject on YouTube (20+ min)

Now lets look at an example that applies directly to us here at Seibertron.com. Imagine one of our fellow Seibertronians posts a video clip here on our message board of a step-by-step review of a brand new figure. Playing in the background behind the voice-over is "The Touch" by Stan Bush. The studio representing Stan Bush could issue a complaint, without being required to notify us or request a take-down. Seibertron.com would be liable and prosecuted solely on a good faith assertion of the copyright owner, without notification, with the site operators subject to possible jail time for not preventing the video from being posted. In short order, the http://www.seibertron.com/ domain in the United States would no longer resolve to our servers and visitors attempting to come to Seibertron.com would be redirected to a “This site under review for piracy/copyright violations” page. Now apply the same principle to the character designs and their likenesses used in your avatars and sigs, the Heavy Metal War altmodes, TransTopia figure photographs, Mosiac comics and more.

To conform to these new restrictions would mean that Seibertron.com would have to switch to a review/approval process for any and all new posts to our forums and articles. Our community team would have to approve every single news comment, every new thread, and every new response before it went live and filter them for potentially infringing material. Even so, we would still possibly be under threat from violations not caught – a user recolouring an image from a Marvel/DW/IDW comic as an example or a snippet of Transformers news from another website in excess of a certain summary threshold. That’s just here on Seibertron. The effect on sites like YouTube, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and the rest of the internet would be devastating, and these popular sites would simply disappear.

The intent of the legislation is to stop piracy, which isn’t affected in the least by this approach. Unfortunately the legislation in the House and Senate has a wide margin of bi-partisan support and looks likely to pass after the holidays. Believe it or not, your Congress representatives do count the number of calls and emails they get on a particular issue, and most of the time only the people in their jurisdiction (read- you) can sway their opinion on something – so your action on this is important.

The Center for Democracy and Technology have released this .pdf as a guide to the key points of contention within this bill. We ask that as many of you as possible read this and then contact your representatives and tell them you oppose the PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House. This act wont stop itself, the internet needs people to take action if it is to remain the free global resource it is today. If you wish to know more about this issue, it is recommended that you visit the Protect Innovation project where you can go into more depth on the issue and download a 'briefing kit' that contains, in detail, the opposition to this bill. Please also be sure to hit the Share buttons at the top of your page to tell your friends about this on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter... whilst you still can.

Here are some links to websites actively actively engaging poeple to help stop SOPA:

I've been aware of this bill for a few months now and it scares me to death. If it passes my respect for the government will hit a all-time low. Which reminds me, I wonder why this issue hasn't been brought up among the Republican presidential candidates.

Some people are like slinkies, not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

pft, thats so stupid. The line can get very grey very quickly, and before you know it people are basically forced to be non creative from fear of appearing to have stolen intellectual property, or just plain scared to even bother posting. ****** US. Stop SOPA AND PIPA indeed.

THE POWERS OF DARKNESS ARE A MORE POWERFUL WEAPON THAN ALL THE TOYS YOUR SCIENCE CAN MUSTERDie, Autobots!

Fans of internet sovereignty should also be aware that there is an effort underway to assign US citizens a unique "internet ID" which basically boils down to a very big-brother-esque, state run internet. This would trump the need for SOPA/PIPA entirely and replace it with something far worse.

I was wondering.. how would this affect resources which are not U.S. based?Would it mostly lie within the area of copyright depositing, or is it on the actual broadcasting/hosting/whathaveyou side of things?

Good move posting this and getting it on the front page, every one here needs to know about this cause this will pretty much destroy the internet for us all. I wont go into another long winded rant as to why i think these bills are **** but i will say this pretty much goes against the constitution and the rights we're suppose to have as americans. Last time i checked this is the USA the land of the free not Soviet Russia or North Korea. I support seibertron.com and any other website blacking themselves out to protest. I just hope theres enough sites and people protesting to make sure this does not happen.

If any members on this board is of voting age, I would highly recommend asking potential politicians about their stance on this bill and register to vote.

Also I would also if you are eligible to vote in any of the Republican primaries in your state, recommend supporting RonPaul for the Republican nominee since he clearly against the SOPA act and stand by our constitutional right for free speech.

As far as the blackout on the 18th is concerned, Reddit.com are spearheading the drive and many other websites have already signed up to it in various forms including blacking out their websites completely, altering their layout and taking down their YouTube channels and Facebook pages for the day. Even Wikipedia are hoping to join the blackout as long as the vote for it gets through on the commons (we'll find out Monday or Tuesday)

Va'al wrote:I was wondering.. how would this affect resources which are not U.S. based?Would it mostly lie within the area of copyright depositing, or is it on the actual broadcasting/hosting/whathaveyou side of things?

Firstly, to clarify, I'm British and live in that most blessed part of England, Manchester. I wrote this article as I don't have a representative to contact so this is me doing my part - if even just a handful if US members contact their politicians and say "what the hell do you think you are doing?!" who wouldn't have done otherwise, then I'll have done my bit.

As I understand it, this Bill effects the UK and Australia and Europe and everywhere else primarily as the Internet is comprised of .com websites, all of which are owned/operated by the US and therefore come under US jurisdiction regardless of the country the servers are based in. If its a .com, .org, .net then its an 'American' site, regardless of who owns it.

Also, think about the knock-on effect: Seibertron.com gets shut-down an d the American posters can no longer access it. Lets just assume the site stays up, it would be like a ghost town here. At a guess I'd say a good 75% of this sites membership is from the US so that leaves the 25% of us non-Americans with a very large but empty site. No traffic, no HMW opponents, no one to talk to.

Now apply that to Facebook. Wikipedia. YouTube. Twitter.It isn't just America that will suffer from this.

DISCLAIMER: The above post clearly was meant to offend, and if you feel insulted by it, please use the 'close browser' button and discuss it with someone who knows not to take the internet seriously.

Motto:"Focus on one thing at a time? Are you crazy!? WHO DO YOU THINK I AM!!!"

Weapon: Semi-Automatic Sonic Boomer Gun

Is S.978 still floating around? It's essentially the exact same thing as SOPA. Except I also remember that in S.978 they would tap your lines for viewing the content, then arrest you if they found you guilty of uploading anything or any other crimes.

Va'al wrote:I was wondering.. how would this affect resources which are not U.S. based?Would it mostly lie within the area of copyright depositing, or is it on the actual broadcasting/hosting/whathaveyou side of things?

Almost seems like it will take a world police stance. Canadians are afraid anyway.

Ron Paul is really the only candidate who cares about civil rights issues like these. To bad he's behind Romney. Paul is the only reason I'm registered as Republican and not still independent. In fact most of the house is comprised of republicans right now. Most of them old and stereotypically ignorant to the effects of the bill. They're only for it because it the Democrats are voting against it.

On a side note this would also apparently shut down ebay and similar resale sites.

Last edited by Vicalliose on Fri Jan 13, 2012 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Seibertron wrote:Thanks for putting this article together, Psychout. I really appreciate it. Hopefully our efforts will help make people aware of these scary bills and that we can do our part to make a difference.

Looking forward to hearing comments and seeing discussions from within our community here on Seibertron.com.

WHAT UPSETS ME THE MOST,when these laws & regulations are created. The rich & powerful are exempt from following them.

if your gonna create new laws & new regulations then EVERYONE should follow them not just some.

I think with the downward spiral economy getting worser & worser every year. the big corporations are getting more greedy & trying to steal every penny away from the hard working people they can.

instead of the big corporations trying to help out the working man. their doing the oppossite & making it worse for them during this extremly bad downward spiral economy.

From my persective capitalism is worse than communism.

From my perspective, all things can easily be corrupted.

Our government has played a big part in destroying capitalism as well as the young college educated fools who's minds are not set in reality and only know how to make money the wrong way. The biggest problem today? Lawyers. As time goes on they have to come up with new ways to put money in their pockets, as more and more people want to become lawyers every year.

Certain corporations have dropped out of backing this these bills. It's mostly backed by Hollywood as a whole. And in my opinion, I've always considered Hollywood one of the greatest evils on the face of the Earth. It's like they exist purely to generate hate and animosity among everyone.

"Government, even in it's best state, is but a necessary evil; in it's worst state, an intolerable one." -Thomas Paine

Vicalliose wrote:From my perspective, all things can easily be corrupted.

Our government has played a big part in destroying capitalism as well as the young college educated fools who's minds are not set in reality and only know how to make money the wrong way. The biggest problem today? Lawyers. As time goes on they have to come up with new ways to put money in their pockets, as more and more people want to become lawyers every year.

Certain corporations have dropped out of backing this these bills. It's mostly backed by Hollywood as a whole. And in my opinion, I've always considered Hollywood one of the greatest evils on the face of the Earth. It's like they exist purely to generate hate and animosity among everyone.

This is easily the most ignorant post I've read on a TFs fan site, placing the blame on the wrong people. Lawyers? Hollywood? What, did you just get out of a tea party meeting?

Basically, our political system is corrupt b/c we've allowed, through our collective ignorance, the wealthy & "people" such as corporations (especially the financial, petroleum, & health care-related industries) to, in effect, bribe the politicians of both parties into drafting & passing laws that benefit the wealthy & corporations, but are a detriment to the vast majority of us.

And Ron Paul would give them even greater freedom to do whatever the hell they wanted.

I think enacting this law could bankrupt the court systems. Everytime some moron tries to press charges for some petty s**t, somebody has to foot the bill to prosecute you and take all the steps to lock you up or fine you. If this law presents such a "grey area" that anyone can be held accountable for almost anything, the waiting list for a case could be years. That is if enough people with no lives come foward to try to "cash in" or "punish" people for using their stuff on the internet. The whole concept only works in theory, not in reality. Like I said before, somebodys gotta foot the bill to enforce all this, or it's just rubbish. Kind of like wasting man-power enforcing jay-walking laws in a city overan with gangs and drug dealers.

Motto:"May God have mercy on my enemies, because I sure as hell won't."

Vicalliose wrote:Our government has played a big part in destroying capitalism

I'm assuming you don't live in America, then? For all this straw-man talk about "corporations" no one has ever once said "corporations" hate people spending money on them. And spending money is the main point of capitalism.